Violence in Ancient Christianity

Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians were proud of this lofty teaching and tried to apply it to their persecutors and to competing religious groups. Yet at the same time they testify to their virulent verbal criticism of Jews, heretics and pagans, who could not accept the Christian exclusiveness. After emperor Constantine had turned to Christianity, Christians acquired the opportunity to use violence toward competing groups and pagans, even though they were instructed to love them personally and Jewish-Christian relationships flourished at grass root level. General analyses and case studies demonstrate that the fashionable distinction between intolerant monotheism and tolerant polytheism must be qualified.

Albert C. Geljon, Ph.D. (2000) in Ancient Philosophy, Leiden University, teaches classical languages at the Christelijk Gymnasium in Utrecht. He has published on Philo of Alexandria and his influence on the Patristic writers.

Riemer Roukema, Ph.D. (1988) in Theology at VU University Amsterdam, is Research Professor in Early Christianity at the Protestant Theological University, Groningen (previously Kampen). He has published on Patristic interpretation of the New Testament and on Gnosticism.

"The volume draws attention to one of the ongoing ghallenges in the ever-expanding field of ancient Christian studies, namely the relative chasm between European and American Scholarship. (...) Relatively few scholars have managed to consistently and effectively traverse the geographic and methodological boundaries between the so-called old and new worlds. Publications like the one at hand, by presenting quality scholarship to an international audience, are no doubt key in remedying such omissions on both sides. As such, Geljon and Roukema's volume is to be commended to all parties seriously interested in violence in early Christianity." – Maria E. Doerfler, Durham, in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 141 (2016), 1/2